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Future of Democracy

July 12, 2003

The author has theoretical perceptions of the events of the world. The Theory of Social Evolution expresses all the basic energy movements of the society. A complete vision sees broad movements in tiny events. Thinkers all over the world in politics and economics have had a glimpse of the trend as it applies to their particular work. Zakaria has recognised all of them and gathered these insights in this book. His context is political freedom as enshrined in democracy. Democracy is valid in the measure it expresses freedom. An atmosphere of freedom permits negative forces to act. The only restraint at present is law. The author examines law as it emerges in various societies especially through statutory institutions as well as institutions founded by public spirit. He has all the components of THE QUESTION one should ask. In that sense, there is aspiration to understand.

The QUESTION of this century is the emerging Spiritual Individual. This should emerge in him as a revolutionary Idea that is capable of leading others to action. Later he can lead institutions and finally the Society if not the government, which is receding into the background. Presently society can generate one such individual in every field. Zakaria is a potential Individual in the field of politics. That he is an Indian Muslim naturalised as an American citizen with a US education and his brother presides over an investment corporation as CEO adds to the potentialities of Zakaria, in that it indicates the transformation of fundamentalism and his brother's accomplishment materially is a solid base for future achievement.

  • He sees events as movements.
  • He sees the direction of these movements towards democracy.
  • The immediate goal of this movement is stability, not justice.
  • The long-term goal is the freedom of the Individual, not democracy.
  • Democracy is a partially developed social institution incapable of consummating itself as it is presently conceived.
  • He has a vague perception of life using the instrumentation of good as well as evil for its purpose, which the author has no idea of.
  • The conflict between the Catholic Church and State is really the conflict of knowledge and power. He sees the conflict, may see the knowledge and power behind them but has no theoretical perception of its nature.
  • The various ethnic groups in India and elsewhere are the fields in which the specific Individuality needs to flower. They are not a bar to freedom or democracy but the very condition in which the freedom can rise to its full stature. For the Individual to come into his own, the society must first divide itself into smaller units.
  • Democracy is an occasion social leadership offers. Liberty is what the individual enjoys by availing of the democratic opportunities. The leadership cannot afford to offer more freedom than the individual can meaningfully use. When offered freedom, by the famous alchemy, it changes into tyranny.
  • The best changing into worst by corruption is an alchemy one needs to know.
  • Money is social authority. It remained at the top of the society and served only the elite. Also it was an occasion for perversion to enslave the man who created it. Any new institution or new extension of an institution integrates itself with old institutions, thus extending them further in the social existence. Democracy that is extended to the wider population compels money to extend itself to similar layers of population. This was the opportunity J.P. Morgan missed, but Citibank and Bank of America availed of.
  • Authority moving to a wider population is defined as 'Death of Authority' by the author. It is the process by which the collective authority rises in the Individual as liberty exercised.
  • The finding that the stability of democracy is directly related to GDP income of $6000 is a great finding, but not precisely final. What is true is increasing prosperity is increasing freedom. This is so because,

- Money is not the determinant.

- MAN is the determinant.

  • Capitalism is a spur to democracy for two reasons.

1. It produces more.

2. Man, as an entrepreneur, discovers himself.

'Americans have the knack of getting into a larger rhythm.'

They were immigrants from Europe whose achievement is there in them. They know how much can be achieved and what opportunities are there before them. Both make for a large attempt. The initial obstacles released commensurate energy in them. Energy, knowledge, opportunity together in big proportions make for the larger rhythm. Billy Graham or Walt Disney succeeded in becoming big.

  • California was the leader of USA, of the world. What the immigrants did in the East Coast earlier was big enough for Europe. California is to the East Coast what the East Coast was to Europe. For thirty years California has languished as the empty land there must take time to absorb the experience.
  • Why did Germany not become England?

Modern Germany was born when Bismarck united her. She was split in WWII and reunited only now. A nation whose physical territory is not united is incapable of great good. It was the land of Martin Luther. The Individual who discovered his spiritual individuality really discovered his mental individuality. They are perfectionists. All their energies were absorbed in reaching perfect workmanship. It had no subtle or spiritual basis. She developed philosophy, not poetry. Earlier they were thugs who destroyed the Roman civilisation and that due comes back to them. Nor did they enjoy the agriculture surplus of the English. The nascent Protestantism would naturally be violent if not tempered by a positive influence - poetry, culture, surplus food or philosophy. Nor did she enjoy the culture of Austria.

  • Uniformity is NOT a rule either in treating patients or conducting an election. Backward pockets in a country must be exempted from elections. Corrupt constituencies were disenfranchised in U.K. Neither do all nations need to adopt democracy nor are all parts of a nation entitled to democratic elections. The criminals of UP should not be allowed to rule the state. Not all men can eat the same food in the same quantity.
  • Nations in the first millennium unconsciously evolved the type of government suited to them. Now humanity can consciously exercise that right as we do in several other fields. We have knowledge enough to decide which type of government is suitable to which country. Democracy is obviously is not suitable to all nations.
  • To assume that USA is the cultural leader of the world because she is a great economic power is the unconscious rule of superstitious existence. Fashions do spread that way. To ape the industrialised nations and build steel mills in India in the fifties did not solve the unemployment problem or ward off famine. India did revert to agriculture in the Third Plan.
  • Any writer will have a focus in writing a book. He presents all his facts from that point of view. Zakaria assumes that the goal of the world is liberal democracy and argues from that point of view. This is an opinion. Suppose we write from our theory point of view, it may again be another opinion. To explore from the point of view that the global nations are tending towards secure governments that are stable would be more factual or scientific.
  • The New York Times calls Zakaria's argument complex because it sees all the arguments as relevant, but does not see the precise rationality in it.
  • Circe's direction to Ulysses saved him from the tragedy. Therefore it appears to be a remedy. It is a desirable remedy. We must be able to suggest a remedy which the previous history is following or the Force in future would follow. That remedy lies in the Individual awakening in his higher part, not asking others to restrain themselves. The attempt of Zakaria at an answer is commendable, as he does so without a wider framework of theoretical understanding.
  • The course of civilisation has followed the route of

- Agriculture in India and Mesopotamia

- Mind, science, poetry, culture in Greece.

- Law, trade, empire in Rome.

- Martin Luther, spiritual freedom, Science in Europe.

- Trade in Europe, empire in European nations, especially in England, leading to world imperial power.

- World wars.

- Global trade, US economic might.

- As Europe and England led the fashions, now USA does.

- Roman fashions all over Europe led their destroyers to give birth to Luther. US fashions must evoke the local individuality in all regions or nations.

- The US is an epitome of world progress with one difference -- the immigrants had the knowledge of their European ancestors.

- The progress is always along the lines of physical to the spiritual with the variations compelled by the horizontal urge.

- Economic suzerainty should next give place to mental leadership of ideas. That idea should explain the nature of the Spiritual Individual.

  • Elite and Equality.

- Hierarchy and equality are social strategies that alternate. Neither is good or bad in itself. One society feeling its own culture superior is at best a non-idea, at its worst it is egoistic superstition. A strategy evolved in a society serves it best. Also several of these strategies discarded once, come back to life again, as Mother going back to japa that HE gave up, because life is in layers that are similar.

- Rationality leads to faith and faith in turn leads to inquiry and rationality. So, strategies of the past will come back. In USA everyone found himself independent and equal in a virgin land. Equality is born out of that misfortune. By worshipping the equality of the USA, one invites the misfortune of being thrown on his own resources in the midst of unhelpful, hostile conditions. Equality is a great concept for one who realises that all are spiritually equal.

It is not the strategy that is valuable but how we arrived at it and where we are in our development and how suitable that is to us.

  • Different geographical, historical backgrounds demand different ways of development. Each develops its own values. Values of one culture are irrelevant to another, but values are eternal. While social values can differ and even moral values, spiritual values are eternal. The value of a society depends upon its spiritual values.
  • A society that is truthful is so at its own level. As societies rise in stability, prosperity, education and culture, the capacity to be truthful at a higher level must be freshly acquired. That depends on the unity of the country, the security of prosperity, the rule of law and the institutions that ensure it and finally the conscientiousness of the elite. As a society rises in the scale of its culture, at some point unsupported by the requirements of the lower levels - such as physical unity in India - it gives way. Truthfulness at the lowest stratum is the measure of a society's integrity.
  • It is better to have absolute ideas of perfection of a society, though they are abstract so that we may have the framework before us.

- Societies grow from physical to spiritual.

- They grow through the individual who later transmits his values to the collectivity.

- Between the personal values of the individual and the impersonal values of social culture lie the family values that represent both at a unitary level and the institutional values that are lived by the varieties of official and unofficial social organisation.

- The curve of growth is neither horizontal nor vertical but a compromise between both resulting in a kind of pyramid.

- As we have considerable historical data, to create a scale of societies according to different values is possible. That can give us a composite scale.

- Such scales or even a clear idea of such gradations will remove all the imprecision in Zakaria's book.

  • When a society moves up the scale, its values give way. In India in a general atmosphere of poverty big pockets of prosperity are emerging. Hence corruption is rampant. Whether it is a downward trend that will annihilate the social existence or a passing phase will be indicated by values of personal integrity and its resilience at other levels. Personal values upheld by social necessities are not real personal values. They are truly social values. Real personal values are the bedrock of social stability. That comes out of independence, self-respect, individuality, etc. The physical individuality of the lowest individual in the society is the index we look for. One cannot be dogmatic about these things as variations are permissible. One's own spiritual enlightenment alone can give one the real understanding.
  • Discovery of numbers is an important stage of mental development, which enables man to measure himself at any time. The data of history and geography give the mind a clarity which it cannot have in their absence. A great part of what we call numbers is information and vice versa. The modern age is an age of measurements. The details of physical health that enable us to measure against a scale have created another greater possibility of co-ordinating them, which has resulted in inconceivable cures. For this reason, mathematics has become the Queen of Sciences. Science essentially stands on the pedestal of the science of measurements. Man who introduced election saw the viability of elections on the strength of converting the volume of support into countable numbers. The physical man whose civilised proud instrument is a dagger is upgraded into a mental man when he values the numbers of votes he counted himself.

It is high time for SCALES to be created in every walk of life. Here we have good use for a scale that measures the value of a society in its composite nature.

  • The professionals of a hundred years ago were individuals who played the role of institutions. Now institutions are gradually replacing individuals. A time will come when the general institution will be able to render individualised service, even as festivals are now institutionalised at the individual level.
  • The WASP establishment admitting women, Blacks, Jews, etc. and J.P. Morgan losing the market to Citibank are parallel movements of social leadership moving down to the entire population. Leadership was by property and wealth and church. Even the church wielded property. It moved to industry and a powerless part of it moved to the educated and the centres of education. The upper middle class was of the high earning professionals whose power came from education acquiring the capacity of great earning. The masses have come to acquire some of it. Hence the leadership of the society moves towards them. Basically it is the collective acquiring the endowments of the Individual.
  • Roots and causes of terrorism:

That it is easy to make bombs is not a valid argument as the phenomenon is not ubiquitous. As in Ireland, Kashmir, and the Arab nations, terrorism has deep political and social causes. Parties that have grievances, right or wrong, resort to all sorts of protests of which terrorism is one. The rigidity of the Catholics and the Muslims is the soil for terrorism to sprout. Anti-Americanism, as all feeling protests, is largely due to the aid USA has given this region. Diplomacy has degenerated into organised hypocrisy, which terrorism is addressing, by its bombs. A nation that had wiped out the entire population of Red Indians now espousing the cause of human rights may be a welcome development, but it is ridiculous. Such ridiculous behaviours are without number. Nature's way of answering them is of the type of terrorism. Nature has presented partition and ten million refugees as an answer to Satyagraha, an inadequate force for a formidable cause. Knowing the language of Nature, life, society, time and the ways in which law, government, and the masses function will be a help to study politics.

  • No bourgeoisie, no democracy

Democracy is rule by the people. Rule is authority. That authority comprises of physical vital strength, property, leadership, education, wealth, etc. Without these being widespread, i.e. reaching all the people, democracy has no reality.

  • Natural resources, capacity to utilise them, money, power, institutions, law, custom, tradition, army, peace, security, stability, and language are many aspects of a growing society. Only when all of them grow to a sufficient level and integrate at that level does society come to function at that level. As long as one aspect such as money or army or education grows considerably, it cannot by itself create a society that is functional at any level. Also, one aspect found in excess has the capacity to turn into its opposite and create obstacles to growth.
  • Democratisation

Any new organisation gradually integrates with all the existing organisations. All religions do so. We witnessed Christianising the populations. Now the world is undergoing the process of Americanisation. When plastic was invented, slowly it found its way into all products. Democracy is a value and the society gradually gives that value to its whole way of life. This concept of democratisation is striking in the sense it is original phrasing.

  • P.14 -- 'Today's capitalism ... is rather democratic'

Democracy will be viable only when it has substance. Money is a substantial form of substance. The top few percentage of people owning a very high percentage of wealth was the earlier phenomenon. Today the pension fund of workers dwarfs the assets of most investment groups. The rights of workers in the shape of social benefits help accumulate money in their hands. The gains of production are now more widely distributed by the position of workers rising. Hence society is more democratic. Zakaria sees the movement of money downwards and the strengthening roots of democracy. The physical worker is becoming vital by possessing money by right. The collective now gains what once belonged only to the pioneering individuals. This is a process of the subconscious collective becoming conscious.

  • P.14 -- 'Culture has also been democratised.' No longer does the singer's reputation depend upon the appreciation of the elite. A singer's survival depends upon how many liked it. That is, culture too, like money, moves down. I think it should be quality becomes quantity instead of vice versa.
  • P. 14 -- What has produced this dramatic shift?

European societies were closed and the opportunities were open only to the aristocracy. The European immigrants in USA had all the opportunities. It was open to all in USA without the social barriers of Europe. Hence the widespread wealth as well as culture. What barriers the society will not break -- rather created and preserved -- Nature breaks by emigration. Education, technology, social change (such as industrial revolution), the creation of new fields of production, speed in communication, creation of new institutions such as banking and insurance, newspapers, TV, etc, make possible this growth. Zakaria enumerates all of them in isolation, isolated from the very process of social evolution. The question of theory does not arise here at all.

  • P. 15 'The great information revolution of 1920 - radio, television, etc. - had a centralising effect - The Internet has taken this process another huge step. --- "Everyone is connected and no one is in control."

In our Theory a positive or negative step can initially have the opposite result. Internet has made it wide and removed the very possibility of anyone controlling it. It goes beyond democracy to freedom. As money had a tendency to accumulate earlier, when the quantity of money crossed a point of saturation, its quality changes and its character changes to the very opposite.

  • P.16 "Call it democratisation of violence".

Any new invention is available for both sides. To the lower wrong side it is more easily available. Instruments and institutions are neutral. It is man who gives them character.

  • P.16 "The age of terror will thus be marked by a tension between the forces that drive the democratisation of authority on the one hand and the state on the other.'

Zakaria cites capital markets, private businesses, local governments, and non-governmental organisations as agencies that sap the authority of the government.

Capital markets deal with money, private business owns production, local governments share the municipal duties, and non-governmental organisations are everywhere. In the beginning there was the King. Later his administration came. Writers like Zakaria see several movements, but the movement is there in ALL walks of life. How the father deals with the son changes with every social change. All human relationships, modes of production, religious beliefs, entertainment, types of gossip, organisation of crime, celebration of domestic rituals, ALL change with the changing times. Zakaria documents changes towards democracy, but we can at each point see the resistance to such changes.

One learns more from the negative side than from the positive expression.

  • Perception of a phenomenon

1. Credit not available so far now available is a personal advantage or opportunity -- Physical awareness of the new.

2. The businessman perceiving an opportunity for business in the new level of credit -- Impersonal awareness of a personal phenomenon.

3. The collective rising to the level of the pioneer -- is a theoretical appreciation.

4. To see money (credit) moving towards the poor as one expression of social development is to understand the part as an expression of the whole.

5. To see that as the last stage of a chain of actions in the process of the physical moving towards the mental is to see MAN as part of a global process of earth's evolution.

6.      One can see it as the inverted involution of Sat into Matter. That is to know earth as the expression of heaven.

7. In the inner life one feels his own initiative as the comprehensive combination of the Ideal and the Practical. It is integral knowledge.

8. Living that knowledge is yoga or divine life.

9. To convert that initiative into the divine initiative, one resorts to surrender.

10. Aspiration for surrender is Transformation.

  • 16-17 -- 'We assume that no problem could ever be caused by democracy'.

This is not a modern attitude to democracy. In 1917 that was what the communists assumed and earlier all royalties assumed. When mankind comes upon a new enlightenment, this is exactly the assumption it has. It is not even mental, as mind even in ignorance concedes that more can be there. This is a vital attitude. Zakaria examines this vital attitude not from outside or from a mental perspective, but from inside as one who is more vitally enlightened. The mind in the vital has these insights. Being a Muslim, we see that in future, the fundamentalists can come out of their fundamentalism if exposed to wider ways of life and given a liberal education.

  • P.17 -- 'We often recognise the need for democracy, especially in repressive countries.'

This is an unthinking assumption. It is better to say that, 'we often recognise the need for stable good government in repressive countries' as democracy gives a greater sanction to repression. If there is a comprehensive SCALE it can let us know what is the maximum freedom each nation can enjoy as a minimum in unorganised conditions and maximum in organised conditions. The scale can also suggest the maximum organisation possible in each state. It is true that in all nations the maximum is not done. Maybe they are not aware of it. A developmental Scale can give that.

  • P.17 -- '....but never talking about the great transformation that is at the centre of our political, economic, social lives.'

That great transformation is not democratisation only, as it is part of a whole, the whole being the emerging spiritual Individual.

  • P.17 -- 'What if democracy produces an Islamic theocracy?' A knife in the hands of the child. All Arab countries and African countries must be under the UN Mandate until education spreads and prosperity rises.
  • There is no question of allowing criminals to stand for election. England used to disenfranchise corrupt constituencies. Corrupt nations can be contained under UN.
  • P. 17 -- 'Democracy is flourishing; liberty is not.'

There are various studies of corruption and human rights going on. Another study correlating democracy and liberty can be taken up and made as rational as possible. That should be our future guide. Democracy and its success can be measured at the national, state, local, institutional level. So also liberty can be measured at all these levels and a median arrived at for adoption of a working principle by the World Government. The equipment of the Individual to receive and benefit by the liberty extended to him can be measured in various nations.

  • P. 18 -- First para 'In some places, such as Central Asia, elections have paved the way for dictatorships. In others, they have exacerbated group conflict and ethnic tensions. Both Yugoslavia and Indonesia for example, were far more tolerant and secular when they were ruled by strongmen (Tito and Suharto, respectively) than they are now as democracies. And in many nondemocracies, elections would not improve matters much. Across the Arab world, elections held tomorrow would probably bring to power regimes that are more intolerant, reactionary, anti-Western and anti-Semitic than the dictatorships currently in place.'

This is a great fact. Zakaria's value lies in seeing this FACT. When he draws the right conclusion from this fact and similar facts, his study will yield a THOUGHT so far non-existent and it can lead the world to act upon it.

  • P. 18-20 -- The discussion on constitutional liberalism and its suitability to Arab and Central Asian countries is beside the point, as it overlooks the historical path each country traversed. The assumption that democracy is a panacea for all ills is as valid as Lenin's assumption about state economy or Hitler's idea of the superiority of race. To reach a common denominator, one should go behind the surface versions of each nation.
  • P.20 -- 'The Western democracies were not characterised by mass plebiscite but by the impartial judge.'

Mass elections were there, but when disputes arose, it was the judge who decided. This was the character between 1840-1940. A democracy will mature when every individual is capable of what the impartial judge was then capable of. Mind is not capable of impartiality, Spirit is.

  • P. 22 -- "The American system is very undemocratic." Zakaria is perceptive in seeing this aspect. It is not only true of democracy, but every other thing, as discipline, freedom, abundance, etc. The positive side is a part. The negative side which is a part comes in to complete the positive side. The Indian yoga based on SILENCE extols japa of loud incantation. Note the loud articulation of OM leads to mental silence. To look at various such aspects that are apparently contradictory but are not really, is an education that takes one out of mind.

- Voluntary recruitment to the army is for the strictest discipline ever known.

- Intimate friendships built on secrecy are built by frankness between the friends.

- The gross dissipation of card games, races, gambling, etc. is played by subtle forces of unpredictable elements.

- The police department established to restore justice and offer kindness is the cruellest department of the government.

- Geniuses are produced outside the educational system.

- Infallibility is for the whole, not for the part. Infallibility of the whole is Self-Perfection.

  • P.23 -- 'Lawyers, doctors, accountants have lost their prestige and public purpose."

This is a movement of society's importance to the Individual, especially when the citizen knows about Law and medicine more and more.

In the measure the polls are respected, the power moves to public opinion. The Internet is playing a great role in it. But even in the seventies fifty percent of the American public understood that WW II was fought by the USA against the USSR. If this is so with respect to a fact, what about opinion formation?

It is a partial truth that Democracy represents public opinion or must represent it. The ultimate valid opinion must come from an undemocratic body such as the court or bank. It is in the Individual that it will culminate and that has nothing to do with our present superstitious conception of democracy, rule by the people. The people at large are to be ruled by thinking bodies that vote. The more one can think, the less he goes to the polling station. The vote is given to the body. It must be given to the thinking, rational mind. Presently institutions - statutory bodies - serve that purpose. It will culminate in the spiritual Individual.

  • P.24 -- "The American people are not stupid" the politicians say ....even when explaining the public's persistent desire for lower taxes and government benefits.

".....Tocqueville said it first and best, 'The French under the old monarchy held it for a maxim that the king could do no wrong and if he did do wrong, the blame was imputed to his advisors."

It is not a persistent desire for lower taxes. The measure of democracy in any country, especially in USA, can be seen in the taxes that would be paid if tax were made voluntary. Democracy is a positive form that arose against monarchy. Zakaria ignores the negative side. He assumes that democracy is absolutely GOOD. He ignores what Sri Aurobindo calls the dark imperative.

As thinkers assume democracy is infallible, the French assumed the King was infallible.

At all times MAN has considered his new idea infallible which means he is selfish, oblivious, and considers himself infallible.

  • P. 25 -- '... technology enthusiasts point out that the Internet is in its infancy, and eventually it will bring democracy to China, prosperity to India, and make us all our own bankers, lawyers, editors and even legislators. Though this comment is an opinion, the truth in it is worth exploring.

'How can you argue against more democracy?' is again a statement of partial truth.

  • P.25 -- 'Western democracy remains the model for the rest of the world'.
  • P.26 -- 'This book is a call for self-control, for restoration of balance between democracy and liberty'.

Zakaria raises all the relevant questions about the suitability of democracy in different conditions.

The issue is not democracy but polity. Democracy is one major aspect of polity. It is a passing phase. The form of governance or the governing body has the following characteristics:

- It must have full AUTHORITY to function i.e. govern.

- Its authority so far issued out of its military might. It moved to political authority internally and externally. To that extent the military receded into the background. Now what rules is economic power. It, of course, will give way to knowledge -- power in the shape of public opinion assessed. Finally this will be replaced by the power of values that are spiritual. It will not be a linear growth. It will oscillate between the collective and the individual, local, national and global.

- As money has ruled the world till now, various other forces will rule for a while.

- The form of GOVERNMENT will be constantly changed under these impacts going often from one extreme to another.

- The increasing element of FREEDOM will, during this course, take the forms of outside control, self-control, autocratic, tyrannical as well as democratic. One inescapable strong element in all this will be downright stupidity hallowed in some name. Superstition will long rule humanity. Even when mankind has risen to heights, superstition will be cherished and worshipped in one corner.

- Whatever it is, Western democracy cannot be a model for the world. Woe unto the world if it takes it as the model. It is not a model for the West.

- Balance between liberty and democracy is a more seminal thought. It will take its shape if the same is considered for the Individual and the collective is evaluated with reference to the Individual.

- Democracy is still to receive a comprehensive definition. There is no existing thought on these lines. Free exercise of Power is not for Ignorance, but for knowledge, not the knowledge of mind, but that of the Spirit.

 

  • P.32 -- 'The execution of Socrates was democratic, but not liberal.'

Over the ages democracy has shown this tyrannical side of it. Socrates is the best example. In the same way liberty too has this other side to it. Hence the importance of a complete view.

  • P.33 --'.....for the rule of law to endure, you need institutions within the society whose strength is independent of the state.'

Between the collective and the Individual, organisations arise and wield power in favour of the Individual. It is consummated when the organisation became institution.

  • P. 34 -- 'The Catholic Church seems an odd place to begin the story of liberty.' Contradictions are complements. When the agent who denies liberty goes to his extreme, he exhausts his vibration and begins in the opposite camp the opposite vibration.
  • P.35 -- Geography of Freedom

Studying Man from history or geography gives us not only precise but penetrating insight. These are external determinants. A higher study is from the inner determinants. Instead of arguing which is the determinant, a study that includes both as aspects will give us the full knowledge.

Freedom is a wide concept embracing geography, history, family, society, psychology, karma, etc. It can be studied from any of these perspectives. The best study is to proceed from the centre where all these meet.

  • P. 39 Protestants and Catholics

- Catholicism is the state to Protestantism, the religious awakening.

German barbarians destroyed civilised Rome earlier. Now the German religion destroys Roman religion.

- 'Luther may be right, he also had Luck'.

Luck is Grace and Divine sanction.

There is no event without that Luck.

One who KNOWS that knows God in life.

- The press published Luther's doctrine and widely distributed it.

As the Mother says that armaments will compel MAN, the press has a compelling force. It is the Press that awakened in Luther.

- 'In 150 years half of Europe was Protestant.'

Now it will be done in 150 days.

  • P. 40 -- 'Religious freedom is due to two fanaticisms quarrelling'.

- by implication against all authority.

  • P.41 -- See whether England's Protestantism is by her economic development.

- State compelled the population - Tolerance of religious dissent is Man emerging out of physicality.

  • P.47 -- 'No bourgeoisie, no democracy'. Commerce is the result of social evolution from agriculture. That is made possible by the greater independence of the Individual than under agriculture. The serf's produce belonged to the landlord. A trader's produce entirely belongs to him. He is the master of it and disposes it at his will. Social evolution is the emergence of the Individual in independence.
  • P.48 -- Robert Peel, Gladstone, Disraeli were the three powerful Prime Ministers. All came from the ranks of the gentry, not the aristocrats. No leader of a nation will arise from a section of the population that is not the vanguard.
  • P.49 -- 'Free markets helped enrich the middle class which then furthered the cause of liberty.'

When a man owns his produce and is socially free to sell it at his own price, he is economically free. Produce is his prosperity.

  • p. 49 --The whole of the 2nd para.

Protest against taxation is assertion of individual liberty. Before the Revolution in France, land revenue went up to 53 %.

- 'America was a special case of a special case. It was England without feudalism.'

- '..shift from premodern society to modern society where business interests and consumer tastes of ordinary people were coming to dominate'. To honour the consumer taste is to accord greater Individual liberty.

  • P.48 -- 'The origin of the English gentleman is intimately connected with the birth of English liberty.'

England was under the domination of several countries. She freed herself from all that. A subject nation is qualified to dominate the world. In the process of freeing themselves from the Romans, the Vikings, the French and the Germans, England created the basis of human liberty. If we know those origins, our argument would be complete.

      We need to examine the primogeniture, rainfall, wool trade, aristocratic set up, Protestantism and industrial revolution in this context.

  • P.50 -- "The whole society seemed to have melted into a middle class."

Generation of middle class is wider distribution of power to the Individual.

- 'America needed neither a powerful Central Government nor a violent social revolution to overthrow the old order.'The immigrant contains both these seeds in essential.

- 'Property qualifications are mostly eliminated.'Society moves away from physicality to vitality.

- p. 51 --'Women got the vote in 1920' Vote was for property. As women had no property, they had no vote.

- USA started on a virgin land, of physically free conditions. England reached there by being dominated by other countries.

- Society created the powerful physical Individual as monarch. The monarch evolving into a citizen of full liberty through social organisation is constitutional liberalism.

- Organisations are the impersonal intermediaries between the monarch and the free citizen.

- Freedom is the free living of the positive citizen where his daily needs, not his aspirations, are not interfered with from any social organisation, especially the governing organisation.

  • P. 255, Vol IV HESP.

America was the first nation that openly showed that national policies were based on small local causes. (Foundation of democracy)

  • P. 53 -- "Jews, Indians and Chinese prosper everywhere ......... Indians do not prosper in India."

Each person is given a cultural endowment by his community, which is his capacity for accomplishment. That depends upon the awakening of his vital, mind, and spirit. The mind of the Jews is fully awakened apart from their alert vital. What is awakened in the Chinese is the mind in the vital. The Indian atmosphere has an added dimension of spiritual light.

The Jews were and are fully ostracised so far. That adds a spur to their self-preservation. So also the Chinese society permits torture and cruelty. Submission is ingrained in the Chinese. Outside, in the absence of that submissiveness, he rises quite easily. The ability of the Indian is not permitted by the social attitudes to emerge; nor is there any social opportunity here he can avail of.

  • P. 54 -- "In fact, we cannot find simple answers."

- Culture endows man with a capacity for accomplishment.

- The capacity emerges in action to the extent the social opportunities permit.

Productivity of a nation is the resultant of social and individual disciplines.

- Collective discipline provides the atmosphere for work and incentive to the individual.

- Individual capacity can work to accomplish, overcoming the social inhibition but it will achieve less.

- Military rule disciplines the society.

- Where man is less evolved, this discipline energises the society.

- In countries where societies are NOT disciplined, military juntas provide it making the society more productive.

- India can benefit by an emergency if it is confined to administration. Coupled with commercial liberalisation, India can achieve the maximum.

- Except in very backward nations, fully liberated Individuals can fully rise to the occasion of most modern societies.

- It only means the equipment man acquired in agricultural times is enough to avail of the latest prosperity, if other inhibitions are not there.

- The most modern collective facilities today have not outgrown the ability of the farmer to avail of them.

- The ability of the society to create opportunities is always greater than the ability of the Individual to avail of them -- when looked at from the point of view of the percentage of people who availed of them.

- Society is not capable of creating opportunities which individuals cannot avail of. From this point of view, the ability of the individual to avail of the opportunities is always greater than that of the society.

  • P. 63/64 -- Democracy did not strike roots in Germany because the press was of the government and all reforms were by the government. The development of the Individual which capitalism makes possible was NOT there.

- There is democracy and liberty in Britain. As one moves east the element of liberty diminishes and vanishes in Russia.

Sri Aurobindo commented about the French Revolution that adding Fraternity to Liberty and Equality was significant.

  • P.66 - 'Around 1900, Germany was seen by many serious observers as the most progressive state in the world.'

Germany was ahead of all other countries in welfare measures such as employee's insurance. These welfare measures were means created by the government, not secured by the awakened proletariat. The serious observers were those who observed the reforms, not the freedom of MAN, or the institutions that made it possible.

  • P.69. 'The more prosperous a nation is, the greater is the chance of democracy surviving.' It is a charming formula full of wise observation. But there is one more step. The economic prosperity of a nation is directly dependent upon how independent the Individual there is.

The idea of Westernisation, modernisation, and democratisation as progress is not necessarily true. If a country's education, productivity, per capita income, law and order, fairness of the society rises by any means, it is progress. Westernisation is good for the Westerner, as Indianisation is good for the Indians. We do not think that a country should follow the Japanese model to prosperity. Go to the first principles -- education, income, justice -- do not superimpose systems. You will end up in a superstition.

  • P. 76 -- "Political institutions, leadership and luck all matter"

That study which brings in luck into its process will not qualify for a study.

  • P. 77 -- 'In developing countries, the state has often to jump start capitalism.'

What the author calls capitalism is the normal growth of agriculture into trade made possible by surplus.

The population is not so much enamoured of liberty or franchise as Prosperity, without knowing that it is liberty that makes for prosperity. Zakaria has no clear understanding here and is thinking about Democracy.

  • P. 91 -- 'Russia reformed its politics before economics. China did the reverse.'

In social evolution, economics comes first, politics comes later. As development is a descent, should we reverse the order is a question we must decide upon.

  • P.108 -- BJP in India

Sri Aurobindo said that if the Hindus are armed, the Muslims will cooperate. The BJP is doing it rudely.

  • P.110 -- U.P. Criminal Politician

Social evolution takes place -- in Freedom -- starting from the most oppressed, as in Tamilnadu. Who are these criminals? If they are from the most oppressed classes, then the movement is on the right track.

 p. 129 - Want of accuracy that easily degenerates into untruthfulness attracts the oriental mind.

Answer: Facts of present day life must be presented to them in precise statements and accurate facts.

Islamic Exception

In any case, if we go to the FIRST PRINCIPLES of survival, growth, etc., Arab countries will fit into the scheme preeminently with religion playing no role. One can take the Koran which talks of brotherhood. You will see the Koran has absorbed the lifestyle of that century. Assuming the Koran is final, take its spirit and apply it to 2000 AD. Fundamentalism will disappear, life, economics, organization, etc. will survive.

Role of Superpowers

Britain brought geographical unity, democracy, modernization to India and her other colonies. Scientific discoveries travel across the world. Buddhism and Christianity spread. USSR gave socialism to the entire world. USA can give the world democracy, prosperity, ethnic tolerance, etc. The USA has given English to the world. Her culture and technology spreads. Whoever has something to give the world gives. Epidemics must be quarantined. Giving must be in essence, not in FORM. Saddam was compelling the world and the US to destroy Iraq.

Subsidies

   Once instituted, they never go. Selfishness rules unless the society changes as with the power of males. Man's change is determined by social change, i.e. there is no individual yet.

p. 176 Curtailing spending never works

A system yields a sub-system which has its own individuality. The government creates the judiciary and then it is on its own. Production leads to sales. The rules, forces and power of sales are NOT governed by the laws of production. The government creates the budget, finance, and subsidies. Each functions on its own.

p. 177 Trial and error is not possible as errors get set in stone

It means the government can go one way, not in both directions. The population retains the power of greed while it gives the power to tax to the government. It is an immature government, not yet fully formed.

Lobbying continues to grow - p. 173

Social organizations are creative. Lobbying endlessly multiplies means that the energy in the system is productive. This happens until tradition is set. It is like concubinage, an offshoot to marriage. The theory MUST explain every phenomenon.

p. 177 ‘The government is unable to apply any rational principle to any of its problems.'

It is a measure of realism or wisdom to know life is not rational. People's faith is in performance, not in rationality.

‘This is the heart of America's dilemma today.'  This means the government is un responsive. The next revolution must be against the bureaucracy. As England adores its tradition, she has to go under the sea.

Problem for USA and the world

  It is not the youth bulge or lobbyists that is the problem. The problem is change is being handled by the past. To handle a changing atmosphere, a changing consciousness is required. All Zakaria's analysis is based on the past.

California - its rise and fall

It was a new state which means its physical and social emptiness needs to be filled. Hence the initial attempt gives rise to extraordinary high standards. As the state grows in size, the quantity absorbs the quality. To be able to view the political development in this regard will explain all the later developments. Politics is power. Society is the fabric that benefits by that power. The greater the benefit grows, the lower is the political effectivity.

  • The new state sets new high standards;
  • It has the greater freedom to attempt new ventures and touches new highs.
  • Physically, it is far away form the East Coast. That makes its freedom more real.
  • The composition of population determines the standards of later years. In the 50's the population was of pioneers. Now it is the Mexican immigrants who came to benefit by the accomplishment of the pioneers.

p. 200

  JP Morgan catered to the rich. Chase Manhattan catered to the masses. Chase expanded.

Money is not mere money. It is political, social power. As democratisation advances, the intrinsic MONEY POWER of the masses increases. Chase saw this truth and took advantage of it. Evolution proceeds on all lines. He who wants to understand must see it in this light.

p. 201  ‘Empowering the Individual' --  The Force of the Century

 In fact, it should change into the Individual emerging into his own. The whole book semiconsciously traces how the Individual's authority rises breaking the social, monetary and political barriers. USA being the land of experimentation and having a cross section of the world's differing population is eminently fitted for this experiment.

Idealism of Marx and the Realism of (Capitalism) Society

Germany gave birth to eminent philosophers. She is known to this day for her thoroughness in work which attempts to touch perfection. Philosophy is thought. Thoroughness of the work belongs to the proletariat. Perfection in any field qualifies one to touch the whole reaching it through one avenue.

   Hence Marx created the original idea of socialism leading to communism. The Realism of the society needs to achieve these goals by taking capitalism to the masses. This was done by the USA. In the USA, capitalism reaching in its acme tended to reach goals of socialism within its own framework and succeeded in it.

Sri Aurobindo says the Spirit and Matter are to be reconciled. Being and Becoming are two realities. We must know the relation between them. Initially action initiated to combine them is violent and ends in a revolution. Evolution requires a greater harmony where each recognizes the value of the other and tends towards it. The Theory of Social Evolution must be in a position to exactly describe each world event in its own terms.

  • That explanation is outer experience.
  • The inner experience that becomes the outer explanation is the valid basis of action.
  • One who personally acquires that, acquires wisdom.
  • Codifying it impersonally, one evolves the laws of higher life.
  • The personal knowledge of the wise man becomes the impersonal knowledge of the poet.

Democratisation is another name given to the evolving society at all fronts. One will be able to understand the process fully when he sees it as evolution, not the partial process of democratisation.

  • In this process, inevitably the future continues to be born.
  • The old FORM cannot survive; but the old ESSENCE cannot be lost.
  • It is not enough to accept the essence; it needs to be cast into the new FORM demanded.
  • Giving up the form, retaining the essence, recasting into the new form, each requires special strategies. It is there the experts play the effective roles.
  • The expert can only supply the essential information. It is for the leader to recast it.
  • Not democratisation, but the changing society with the emerging Individual can only give us the answer we seek.
  • Every aspect of democratization is the result of the Individual emerging into his own.
  • Democratisation is the effect, not the cause.

Arab States

  • Zakaria sees the US well off and the Arab states not so. It is true of many other states also. Economically his vision is true.
  •  He sees a way out, which puts forth not many weighty ideas. There is no clear proposal for any undeveloped nation.
  • We are not speaking from any platform of power. There is no such forum in the world today. We can only give ideas. If the chance of an idea being accepted is greater, then it is welcome.
  • Ideas cannot be received by politicians in power. The public cannot evaluate an idea if it is not practised somewhere. I assume there are enough MINDS in the world with mental experience that can appreciate the value of an idea. An impact on such minds will in the long run - maybe in the short run - make an impact on the world.
  •  For such people to accept an idea, the idea must be theoretically sound and be confirmed by historical experience. The idea is high above. Life is a hundred steps down below. The idea at the top must be watered down to the very last practical step. In that case, such an idea may be found somewhere in practice. The history of progress is one of such revelations. We see it in the spread of every idea of liberty, equality, fraternity, prosperity, etc., especially in the spread of socialism. Lenin chose to offer socialism to the masses through the edicts of state. Stalin created a police state. Socialism is too big an ideal even for a society to understand. State is too narrow a vehicle. The opposition of the entire world necessitated this tyranny partially. Socialism presupposes enough wealth in the society to be distributed. Russia was very poor in productivity. A small vessel espousing a great ideal degenerates into rigid violence. The industrial countries, especially the USA, were places of greater productivity. They had organised trade unions to protect the labour rights. In time, they were enacted as laws. The enfranchisement of the workers gave him RIGHT and dignity which was steadily growing through organisational defence, legal protection, changed social attitudes and finally, rising income of the working class. The auto workers of the US or Germany are as well off as the upper middle class of other countries that were enacting socialism by law. Behind socialism lies the call of the Communist Manifesto which was a live force in all countries around 1900. It was essentially a call, projected as a Theory which was ineffectively contested. The Theory of social evolution is the practice of nations and societies all over the world. It explains every event in exact, precise formulas. Zakaria sees a hazy partial version of it as democratisation, which is one aspect of social progress. An international journal which endorses the theory explaining world events according to the Theory is likely to gain credence. Programmes drawn on that basis for each nation suited to it at the present level is likely to create a MOVEMENT.

Zackaria - Freedom - UNO

The future of FREEDOM in the world is largely dependent on what the world organisation is going to be.

  • Today it is undemocratic, lives by veto.
  • The knot of world freedom lies in this knot of veto.
  •  Should this veto be abolished and full democracy be restored to the UN, instead of the present undemocratic UN, another form of autocratic rule will emerge.
  • Today the material basis or the military base of the 1945 UNO is not there.
  •  In the measure that basis has disappeared and equally in the measure the new economic realities have arisen, a new UNO with fuller democratic power can be created.
  •  Their organisational basis has come into existence in the various subsidiary organisations of UNO-UNESCO, WHO, FAO, World Bank, UNDP, UNEP, etc.
  • As it is true the new freedom peeps through these organisation more, it is equally true the autocratic nature of the original UNO persists in these organisations. To remove them not in a major way, but ENTIRELY is possible.
  • Eradication of terrorism is an excellent front on which excellent work is being done. Efforts here can fully relieve this organised effort of the domination of one or two states. To bring it most effectively and most directly under the UN and - not its veto - its fullest democratic character is possible.
  • Another great field where successful good work has already been done is pollution. This too must be put on such a basis.
  • The minimum that can be done is,

1. Initiating an international Public Debate on the democratisation of UNO, organised and authorised by the UN.

2. Systematic DISCUSSION of this idea at the UN on the various aspects such as

— Power

— Administration

— Procedure

— Finance

— Constitution

— Theory of Fairness, Democracy, Equality, Egalitarianism, liberty and Fraternity.



story | by Dr. Radut